Wednesday, January 1, 2014

2013 Year In Review

The Reeling's Year In Review!

What a crazy year we've had. Aside from the awesome non-horsey things that happened (business success, getting engaged, seeing some of my favorite bands, catching up with old friends and making new ones), here are some of the horsey highlights of the last year!

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January 2013:

Immy, P and I all move to S's place after having a horrible time at our previous boarding barn. I struggle with the weather and with Immy's ongoing ulcer problems - if the air moves the wrong way it sends her spiraling into gastric distress. Immy gets her second ride, and her third ride brings trotting and a bigger space! She is still extremely twitchy, weird, and frightened of most everything that remotely comes near her, her bridle especially (the most headshy horse I've ever met). I get a crazy idea, and contemplate the future.

February 2013:

My crazy idea goes HORRIBLY wrong and Immy pile-drives me into the ground (and 12 months later, I STILL have a haematoma on my butt). We do a lot of AquaTreading, Immy's brain goes on the fritz from too much handling (even just catching and touching her every day was very hard for her), and the dentist finds a lot of awful things in her mouth. We all are very tired of winter. I go back to lots and lots of groundwork with Immy and try to get her head back on straight.

March 2013:

Immy gets weirder under saddle and on the ground, and we accomplish 0 of our goals. I PowerPac Immy and more or less shut her gastric system down, and make her hard to catch. We get it back together and I get an over-the-head blanket on her, figure out sidereins, and go on a TRAIL RIDE! I find a small, dirty junker mare on Craigslist that I decide to take a chance on as a turnaround. Her ad title literally read "Warmblood mare, comes complete with issues"... of course I had to go look. I was told she was jumping around 4' last year (which was a bit of an exaggeration), but that an idiot trail rider went bombing around on her for a few months and basically ticked her off to the point where she just quit going forward altogether. When I went to go try her, I couldn't even make her go faster than a walk - I put my leg on and she quit on me altogether, stopping dead and pinning her ears. I talked the owner down to $500, brought her home on the last day of the month, and renamed her O-Ren.

April 2013:

My entire life gets thrown for a loop when my lawnmower shoots a rogue rock out at me and cracks me in the ankle. I am off on crutches for quite a long time, and end up leaving a dead-end job because of it. Immy goes out to new arenas and does wonderfully, and I find out that O's issues are entirely more complicated than I had originally thought. She goes in every single direction except forward at a normal rate, and goes every speed possible except the one you want her to go. P gets her butt handed to her a few times and gets reminded that she is 17, damnit, not 2! I compare how the mares all looked when I got them, and how they all looked then. I talk about bratty miss P, and skittery miss Immy. We have a pretty good month... it is starting to get HOT outside.

May 2013:

Immy catapults me again, HARD, and unexpectedly. At this point, I am starting to seriously question whether or not she will ever be safe under saddle... she is still very frightened (despite a year and a half of working with her) and completely unpredictable. O gets a lot of wet saddle pads, and I talk about how weird and quirky redheads are. I outfit her in some headgear (neck stretcher/martingale) in order to try and keep her somewhat under control (it partly works). We get hit with some extremely scary tornadoes and a bunch of people die, but thankfully we're all fine - one touched down in our pasture though!! I do some sleuthing and find out more about O's history. I find out there is no possible way to tire O out, ever, at all. We ride for hours and hours and hours.

I make a very tough decision and decide to let Immy be retired as a companion-only horse - her issues make her too unpredictable and dangerous to ever really be trustworthy under saddle. I am SO thankful we all rescued her and rehomed her, even if she didn't end up being a show horse like I had wanted - it was the right thing to do. Somewhat unexpectedly, P finds herself leased out as well, and O becomes the only child for awhile, and I spend a lot of time discussing that. I make plans, I lay down some law, I show off our lunging improvements and I score a membership to WD. O gets some cranio work (doesn't do anything), and we have a horrible jump school (although we know why). We lose Kidd Kraddick and my heart breaks.

August 2013:

It's hot. We have no brakes but we do more jumping and XC schooling. O completely loses her marbles when she comes into heat, and I consider options for helping that. No, really. I GET ENGAGED! And then of course I have to catch-up with posts! She is starting to be pretty awesome, if I do say so myself, even though she is REALLY difficult and REALLY challenging!

I just stumbled upon your blog today, but it sounds like you had an amazing - and extremely busy (congrats on your engagement!) year. I am hosting a 2013 Year in Review blog hop - I would be thrilled if you would add your link to the collection. :-)

Wow what a year! I've read every post but seeing it all together like this is awesome. I'm so glad you had a mostly awesome year. You deserve it. :D You're done such a fabulous job with O. She doesn't even look like the same horse! I can't wait to see what 2014 hold for you two. You're going to be unstoppable!

Rainbow Bridge Tribute

Pax Grows Up!

O-Ren

Pangea

Pax

Dylan

Uma & Lendri

Sriracha

Zazu

Big Frank

About Me

For as long as I can remember, my life has revolved around horses. I've been riding since the age of 7, and doing dressage and eventing since the age of 15. My first gelding was a little black Trakehner named Quincy who had had EPM at some point; he was the best friend an emotional teenager could have ever wanted. He died of a horrible colic in 2004. My second gelding was a dark bay clunker of a Trakehner named Metro; he was the best schoolmaster and friend I ever could have asked for, and he trucked my butt around my first real x-country courses, and brought me my first really fancy ribbons. Due to a whole slew of problems, we euthanized him in 2006. My third horse was the quirky and opinionated Gogo, my first youngster and my first mare. She taught me endless amounts of patience, the importance of praise and soft hands, how to graciously accept mass amounts of blue ribbons one moment and how to graciously accept a dose of humble butt-whooped pie the next. After a long and downhill rehab for compounded leg injuries, we let her go in October of 2011. What's next for me? Follow along and find out!